From another angle... At draft time, the commentaries that were available to read mostly had Turner as the consensus #2, and it was hard to observe any pattern among those that didn't (i.e. it was establishment vs. pimple faces). Of course it's possible that the people who knew the thinking of the smart GMs weren't part of that chatter, and preferred to keep things close to the vest. But then why shouldn't we assume that the same parties are still keeping things close to the vest, and that that this quotation is not coming from them either.

That quote is absurd. Every team in the league thought he was a top 3 player at worst. Presumably all those teams have scouts. It's not like he's a figment of draftexpress or Chad Ford. Not that Chad Ford hasn't had some influence on where some guys (largely Euros) have been drafted, but surely not in Turner's case.

And about Melo, I find the Nets essentially making him a co-GM kind of perturbing. He's going to tell them who to trade for? And that someone he wants is Rip Hamilton? Is this some kind of "if only I'd been drafted by the Pistons" fantasy?

That "one scout" is a damn moron. Anybody who watched Turner in college knew he was clearly the best player that year and the most complete guard in a weak draft class. He had absolutely no problem hitting shots in college and he most definitely created pretty much every single opportunity his teammates ever had to score. He ran the offense and set up guys like Lighty for great open looks from beyond the arc or easy layups.

As I've been saying since seeing him play in college for the first time in the Big Ten tourney last year, he's a guy who needed to be drafted by a Western Conference team because only in the West can you have a shooting guard running your team a la Kobe and still win. That's why he was the #2 overall pick, because he is a complete player who can carry a team with not just his scoring but his all-around game, especially as a playmaker. He will never be the player he was in college in Philly because they already have guys to run the offense and because you can't run an offense with a shooting guard in the East and win. Iguodala and LeBron are the only exceptions to that because they aren't shooting guards(even if Iguodala plays there at times), and they are defensive-minded players who run the defense as well.

That's why Turner isn't a 20 ppg scorer right now, because this isn't his team. If he got drafted somewhere where he was running the offense and was the focus of the team, he would already have ROY locked up, or at least he would if Blake Griffin hadn't gotten injured last year. Turner played so well in Pheonix because he had no hesitation or reluctance to shoot or score. His problem is he is always trying to fit into the offense instead of being the offense. He is not a complimentary player. He needs to have that same attitude of "I'm the scorer. I'm going to go out there and put the ball in the hoop as many times as I can" that he had in college and in Pheonix, otherwise he will never reach his potential in any form.

No, this is delusional. If he were capable of scoring 20 per in the right system, right now, he would have shown flashes of scoring ability in more than four games. Other than that I'm not getting the East/West distinction as to shooting guards. There aren't a ton of teams like that now for whatever reason but in the past you had Pierce, Iverson, McGrady, Allen in Milwaukee, Houston in New York, Carter in Toronto, Redd in Milwaukee, etc. Has the East become more of a big man-centric conference since?

No. You are delusional, and you seriously do not know basketball. You have absolutely zero clue what it's like to play with players who play stupid or are ball-hogs, something you would know if you ever even played streetball let alone league basketball. You also have absolutely zero clue how huge of a transition it is to go from being a point-forward to a guy who is played off the ball.

Do you even know why players like Turner play with the ball in their hands instead of off the ball in the first place? It's because if they don't control the offense, they don't get used right and their team loses games due to stupid players making stupid plays. I say that with first-hand knowledge.

Turner can only be played when not running the offense in one way, and that is as a scorer. He is not a guy who should ever be standing around waiting for the ball or passing to somebody else. He should be calling for it and getting it on every single play. He should never be on the floor with Lou Williams, and neither should Meeks or Jrue or Iguodala, or Thad or Speights for that matter. Turner needs to be on the floor with players who will give him the ball whenever he is open. He needs to be on the floor with anybody but Lou or Nocioni. If he doesn't feel comfortable and feel like he's being used right, he won't do well. He's a humble player, as are pretty much every player on this team minus Lou, Nocioni, and Kapono. He doesn't have the ego of a star so the only way for him to become one is to be allowed to play his game and get comfortable. That's how he became The Villain at Ohio State.

This is not the late 90s-early 2000s. Get that through your head. This league is not hip-hop anymore, and idiots like Rondo and the overhyping/giving credit to John Wall when he played like crap in college is nothing more than the exception and the influence of idiots who know nothing about basketball. It has nothing to do with big men or any other position. It has to do with defense and smart play. That started with Detroit and San Antonio and continued with Boston. In the East, there are 3 positions that you need guys who stand out at, mostly on defense. Those are the 3(LeBron, Iguodala, Pierce, etc), the 1(Jrue, Rose, realy every single point guard on a good team minus Rondo), and either the 3 or the 4(Garnett, Bosh, Stoudamire, Smith, etc). The non-shot blocking big man and the shooting guard have to fit into the team without requiring the ball in their hands or much of a role.

There are only two ways to make this model work, and this model is the only one that works in the East. Those two ways are to have the 1, 3, and offensive big man be your main offensive options and have the point guard run the offense while the shooting guard and other big man only get the ball on cuts/screens or catch and shoot plays, or to have the 3 run the offense as a point-forward and play the shooting guard off the ball as the main offensive option, and divy up the offense between the other 3 players on the floor depending on the situation/kind of players they are.

In the West, it's different. You run the offense through a scorer instead of through a guy who fits a position. There are two ways to do that, either with a swingman like Kobe, Durant, Turner, etc and have the point guard be a role-player who brings the ball up and have the 3 be a lockdown defender who doesn't require many offensive looks, or you run it through a point guard like Chris Paul who is the main scoring option and play inside-outside basketball with the big man down low and shooters at the other positions, maybe a scorer at one of them who plays off the ball.

That's how the league is. It is a league of roles, not one of superstars, no matter what any idiot on ESPN or Philly.com says. True superstars are superstars because they make the team around them better and fit into a team and fit a role, and the best teams are the ones who play the game the way I just described.

I never said he was selfish. I said he's an idiot. He's also a delusional douchebag and so are every single one of his moronic supporters. He makes easy plays look difficult and his only "impressive" moves are moves that are only impressive when done by big men or 3/4 types. He's not a team player and he's not showy in an effective way. He misses wide open layups and plays no defense whatsoever except to try to steal the ball. He can't blow by anybody without having a pick set for him on the guy defending him.

He runs the "point" the way a shooting guard or point-forward does, except unlike either of the two he's a) not even remotely good enough to be the guy always looking to score and b) not smart enough to make the right play. He is incapable of blending into an offense the way a true point guard does, and the only time he passes is when he either can't score(which is often because he is such garbage he couldn't light up a pick up game) or is sure to get an assist. The fact that he's even in conversation with John Stockton as anything except the opposite of everything Stockton stood for as a player and an example of how not to be on John Stockton's level is an insult to one of the greatest point guards in history.

This and your reply to Tray is probably the best stuff I have read on Turner so far... It makes sense and provides a different explanation for his low production (as opposed to the he's just plain crap or iggy is holding him back)